Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
This does my nut in with any/all managers, playing to your weaknesses AND the opponents strengths is the worst ever tactic, sometimes you'll pull off a minor miracle, Inter/Chelsea but even then there was some tactical genius there. remember Barca are actually weak at the back, people have a go at their fullbacks but they are weakest when the two CB's come out, both whom lack pace, and the fullbacks have pushed on. Busquets, Xavi, Cesc, there isn't great pace in central mid either. Encouraging Barca forwards does limit their space upfront AND exposes their rear a lot more than pushing the entire Barca team back into their half(if you even could).
Here Utd just decided to fight in central midfield with worse players. You simply don't have to fight in midfield, CHelsea and Inter chose not to, at first glance you take Chelsea/Inter played into Barca's attack, but its always been their central midfield that dominated games for them. They simply said, lets not play there at all, crowd the space those guys like to pass into, and catch them on the break. It's also worth noting Inter's defence was stunningly good, a team built for it, and for all the hate for Terry, he's had another incredibly solid year, no pace at all yet reads the game better than most other CB's, if he wasn't such a dislikable bloke he'd be recognised as one of the best CB's in the world. Cole(since AVB left) has been in outstanding form, Ivanovic is just quality and Cahill isn't half bad to be honest. Utd for me though, aren't even close, Evra is a liability, you don't have a first team right back and Jones/Smalling just aren't "in form" at all, with Carrick protecting them even had they decided to defend deep rather than leave oodles of space against a great attack and lose in midfield, their defence isn't good enough. Utd's attack is their strength and they threw that option out before the game started.
I've said that for years, Real screwed it up for 18+ months under Mourinho doing a Fergie, fighting them in central midfield. You simply don't have to, Utd did not have to fight them in central mid, its stupid, nothing less. As you said Clichy(who was absolutely brilliant) and Zabeleta both had very little to do defensively and the reason Park was there, to help out Evra, was made worse by him being there. Evra has become a joke, Nasri didn't have a great game, he had a poor game, his final ball was poor and his one real chance he fluffed, however the simplicity with which an out of form player and a not particularly attacking fullback got down and passed around your left side was ridiculous.
Young would both have pegged Zabeleta back, helped Evra immensely, held the ball up the field and obviously won a penalty
Scholes had a 98% pass completion rate in that game, 98% ffs, that is unbelievable considering who he was up against in midfield... the problem was where he was passing. Rooney didn't make runs to get in on goal, Park didn't bomb down the wing, Nani didn't do much and Carrick did nothing to help push them onwards. His passing was as usual immaculate, he just didn't have anyone to pass to in the City half.
Last edited:
